October. The harvest is in, the daylight is shrinking, it’s getting colder, and the spooks are preparing to roam the earth. If I were taller, I’d buy a long black cloak and stalk the Lower East Side at twilight, whipping around corners and scaring the children. (Hey, there’s a Quidditch team that plays delusionary matches in the East River Park on the weekends. I could referee.)

As energizing as the autumn can be, especially with the new theater season fully launched, I am inclined toward some Victorian malingering this year. I have some new work brewing in the back of my brain, and it’s making me weird. When I’m not taking those long, brooding walks in my cloak, I want to be draped limply across a velvet chaise lounge, perhaps toying with the locket at my breast in a melancholy, Steampunkish way. (I don’t have a chaise, or a locket. My home is actually quite ridiculously bright and cheerful. But in my mind, people, in my mind.)

Somewhere in there, in my cerebral cortex or buried deep in my entrails, is a New Play. It’s not ready yet. It doesn’t have a form. It’s just out of sight and out of reach. But it nags. And this state of things seems quite perfect for the season. What would the costume for a half-baked idea look like?

Usually, when I have a half-baked idea, I’m bursting with energy. This time I’m on a slow simmer. It’s grimmer, and grittier, and has that horror-movie sense of long hallways with doors one should not open. But you know you will.